Jihad Watch already carried the story last Friday, so I’m about a week late, but it’s hard to keep up with all these Albanian “not like that” terrorists. A follow-up to this jihadist from September. It’s gotten to the point that more and more of the MSM are deigning to report about terrorists even when they’re Albanian:

A BROOKLYN architect pleaded guilty Thursday to providing material support to militant fighters he hoped to join in Pakistan.

Agron Hasbajrami did not have to admit he hoped to kill American troops under the deal his lawyers hammered out with the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s office.

Instead, Hasbajrami copped to conspiring with the militants to kill “people” overseas, said prosecutor Seth DuCharme.

Hasbajrami, 28, an Albanian national who lived in Bay Ridge, was arrested at Kennedy Airport carrying a one-way ticket to Turkey, a tent, boots and cold-weather gear. Previously he had sent about $1,000 to the militants overseas.

NEW YORK (AP) — An Albanian citizen living in Brooklyn has pleaded guilty to a terrorism charge in New York after admitting he tried to go to Pakistan to join a radical jihadist insurgent group.

Agron Hasbajrami (ah-GRAHN’ hahs-bah-ruh-MEE’) entered the plea Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn to trying to provide material support to terrorists.

(Before, they wouldn’t even let you pronounce “Albanian” or “Kosovan/Kosovar” if it came before the word “terrorist”; you were only allowed to pronounce the words “formerYugoslav“; then they tried Slavicizing a terrorist’s name so it wouldn’t sound too Albanian. But NOW they’re even teaching you how to pronounce the distinctly Albanian last name. I guess they figure we’re going to be seeing more and more of these kinds of names in the news, so — just like Americans are having to learn obscure Kosovo place names as one jihadi after another hails from there — the news people have decided it’s time to finally educate ourselves on the people whose war we fought 13 years ago.)

He faces up to 15 years in prison. He also has agreed to be deported.

Authorities say he sent more than $1,000 abroad to support terrorist activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan and communicated with someone in Pakistan who said he was a member of an armed group that had murdered American soldiers. Authorities also say he expressed a desire to die as a martyr.

Hasbajrami was arrested at Kennedy Airport last September, preparing to go to Pakistan.

A Brooklyn architect admitted yesterday that he tried to travel overseas to join a bloodthirsty jihadist terror group in Pakistan.

Agron Hasbajrami, 28, an Albanian citizen legally residing in the United States, was lured away from his New York City architecture career after becoming radicalized on Internet Web sites preaching holy war.

“I tried to help a group of people who I believed were engaged in fighting in Pakistan,” he said.

Hasbajrami also said he “attempted to help the group by providing money and myself in support of their efforts.”

Hasbajrami, who was arrested at Kennedy Airport last September, pleaded guilty in Brooklyn federal court to one count of providing material support to terrorists. He now faces up to 15 years in prison, under the terms of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.

His defense attorney, Steve Zissou, declined to elaborate on why Hasbajrami became disenchanted with a promising architecture career in New York and decided instead to embrace an insurgency in southwest Asia.

Well, it’s harder to build buildings than to blow them up. And certainly I can understand his veering off his career path. I tend to lose focus myself, but that usually just leads me to a slot machine, not terrorism. Then again, I’m not Muslim.

Even The NEW YORK TIMES got in on the action, with its traditional Yoda-style elongation of a headline:

The man, Agron Hasbajrami, an Albanian citizen who had been living legally in Brooklyn since 2008, was accused of sending more than $1,000 to a contact in Pakistan to finance terrorist activities before deciding to head overseas to become a member of a radical Islamist group. The group was not named in court documents.

Mr. Hasbajrami, 27, pleaded guilty before Judge John Gleeson in Federal District Court in Brooklyn to one count of attempting to provide material support to terrorists. He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison when he is sentenced on Sept. 14. He could have faced up to 60 years in prison if he had been convicted at a trial.

Under a plea agreement, three other counts of providing material support to terrorists were dropped. Mr. Hasbajrami also agreed to be deported after he serves his prison term.
…
Mr. Hasbajrami was arrested on Sept. 6 after arriving at Kennedy International Airport with a one-way ticket to Istanbul, where he planned to meet with people who would help him join the fighting, according to court documents. He had already obtained an Iranian visa, according to court documents, and was carrying a tent, boots and cold-weather gear.

Mr. Hasbajrami, according to the documents, had written in an e-mail to his contact that he wanted to “marry with the girls in paradise,” a common reference to dying as a martyr fighting jihad.

We might as well take this opportunity to update ourselves on the Sherifi family, whose one son is in prison for being part of the North Carolina Eight arrested in 2009, and whose other son is now in jail awaiting trial for trying to kill the witnesses against his brother (i.e., forjustbeingAlbanian):

RALEIGH, N.C. — A federal judge in North Carolina says an immigrant from Kosovo will stay behind bars until his trial on charges he tried to hire a hit man to behead witnesses in a terrorism trial.

U.S. District Court Judge Earl Britt decided Monday that 21-year-old Shkumbin Sherifi won’t be released on bond before his trial in November. The FBI says he plotted to kill the witnesses in his older brother’s trial.

Hysen Sherifi was sentenced to 45 years in prison for plotting to attack the U.S. Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va., and targets overseas.
…
Prosecutors feared Shkumbin Sherifi would flee to Kosovo, which doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S.